Beyond 'Business as Usual': Ensuring the Network We Want Is the Network We Get

Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - 3:45pm

About the Event

If Minnesota leaves its current construction policies in place, would the network we get meet our future needs? In this project, Associate Professor David Levinson is comparing networks forecast under alternative budget scenarios with networks constructed according to a set of decision rules developed with Mn/DOT and Met Council staff. Using a set of performance measures, Levinson then evaluates the alternative futures to determine whether the network we would get in the absence of a change in policies outperforms or underperforms the networks developed by applying the suggested decision rules. This evaluation framework enables new decision rules for network construction to be tested, suggesting a path beyond "business as usual." The presentation will report on work in progress for this ongoing project, which extends the Mn/DOT "If They Come, Will You Build It" project.

Speaker(s)

David Levinson, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Minnesota